Staff Reporter :
Bangladeshi investigators said if the Air Traffic Control (ATC) of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport performed their duties properly, then the air crash could have been averted.
The ATC did not perform their duties properly and this aspect of the incident did not come out in the final investigation report, Captain Salahuddin M Rahmatullah, head of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Group of Civil Aviation Authorities of Bangladesh (CAAB), said in a press briefing this afternoon, hours after the Nepali authorities published the report.
Nepali investigators said in a final report on the fatal crash published on Monday that US-Bangla plane “seemed to have an emotional breakdown” before a deadly crash last March.
They blamed the crew’s loss of situational awareness for the crash of the US-Bangla Airlines flight to the Nepali capital from Dhaka that caught fire while landing at Kathmandu, killing 51 of the 71 people aboard.
According to the report compiled by Nepali officials, the probable cause of the crash was the pilot’s disorientation and loss of situation awareness.
Captain Salahuddin, also a member of the investigation team, said that he would urge the Nepali authorities to include these aspects (about ATC performance) as an appendix to the report.
There was a “mistake” from the part of the pilot, but if the ATC had addressed it properly then that mistake could have been corrected, he added.CAAB Chairman Air Vice-Marshal M Naim Hassan was also present among others in the press briefing held at the CAAB headquarters in Dhaka.
Earlier in the day, the Nepali investigators in the final report on the Himalayan nation’s worst aviation disaster in 26 years said that the captain of a Bangladeshi aeroplane “seemed to have an emotional breakdown” before the crash, Reuters adds.
The flight of US-Bangla Airlines from Dhaka crashed at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport on March 12, 2018 that left 51 people — 28 Bangladeshi, 22 Nepalese and one Chinese national – dead and 20 others were injured.
“The pilot thought he could maneuver the aircraft and land. But he could not,” panel official Buddhisagar Lamichhane, told Reuters on Monday, referring to the captain.
The captain was under stress and “emotionally disturbed” because he felt that a female colleague who was not on board of the fatal flight had questioned his reputation as a good instructor, Nepal’s Accident Investigation Commission said in the report.
“This, together with the failure on the part of both the crew to follow the standard operating procedure at the critical stage of the flight, contributed to the loss of situational awareness,” the report, submitted late on Sunday, said.
This lack of awareness meant the crew did not realise the deviation of the aircraft, a Bombardier Inc Q400 turboprop, from its intended path, which in turn meant they could not sight the runway, it added.
Having missed the runway, the crew was flying very low north of it in an incorrect position near hilly and mountainous terrain around the airport, it said.
“Finally, when the crew sighted the runway, they were very low and too close to (it) and not properly aligned,” added the report, saying the captain should have halted the landing and initiated a go-around.
The plane skidded off the runway on to surrounding grass, quickly catching fire. Both pilots were among those killed.
